


His External Soul

by MoonBeams



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Gen, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Sherlock has a daemon but no one else does, Sherlock's Past, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 12:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11829204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonBeams/pseuds/MoonBeams
Summary: Sherlock knows of no other pair like him and Nyx. Being the only person you know of with a daemon isn't cool, it's hard. Especially when Sherlock starts school. Especially when Nyx settles. Especially when Sherlock discovers drugs.Snapshots of Sherlock's life with Nyx from a young age until they finally meet acceptance and understanding in the form of John Watson.





	His External Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Having read His Dark Materials, or at least understanding how daemons work, will help you here. Otherwise you'll be a little lost. Enjoy :)

Being the only ones is hard when they’re growing up.

Specifically, when Sherlock starts school. During primary school, Nyx spends as much of her time as possible in the form of a bird, perching on the windowsills of Sherlock’s classroom. After classes, they stay out late and play. Nyx is a happy puppy, a soaring buzzard, a cheetah for Sherlock to race. They come home as the sun sets, happily exhausted and eyes shining, and Nyx changes into a little dormouse and hides in Sherlock’s pocket.

Then Sherlock starts boarding school, and soon after hits maturity. He quickly learns to sneak out of the dining hall at lunchtime, after three hours of lessons on the third floor. He holds Nyx tight to him, clings, and hisses angrily at her. Why did you have to settle like this? Why did you choose this form? Change into a bird again! Nyx tells him calmly that it hurts her just as much to stay on the ground, skulking where she won’t be found and chased off by the groundskeeper.

They don’t get any better at it. Sherlock sneaks out repeatedly and soon misses lunch every day. Then he begins skipping lessons, especially those on higher floors. He quickly discovers that lessons are even more mind numbing without Nyx perching as a bird on the windowsill, sending him knowing glances and speaking to him in a way only he hears and understands. The headmaster’s office becomes almost his second home, with constant warnings. That’s all right though, because the headmaster’s office is on the ground floor, and through the windows behind the headmaster’s chair he can see Nyx’s dark form rustling the bushes.

Sherlock distances himself from the other boys. His common room is on the first floor, manageable but not pleasant. He spends all his free time outside with Nyx, walking away from the school to the farthest edge of the grounds, where they won’t be seen running and play-fighting together, enjoying the time when the bond between them isn’t being constantly stretched and tested. He knows the form Nyx has settled in would frighten the other boys. He can’t tell exactly what she is but she’s some sort of wolf dog, with black shaggy fur and orange eyes. She looks fearsome. Only Sherlock gets to see her rolling on her back, wagging her tail, tongue lolling out. But those times are getting fewer.

Sherlock becomes withdrawn, sullen. His teachers tell the headmaster that he’s too clever, but the headmaster doesn’t know what to do about it. He allows Sherlock extra hours in the laboratory, turning a blind eye to most of the explosions, because it seems to keep Sherlock under more control than a classroom does. He tells the chemistry technicians to limit what substances Sherlock can get his hands on, but Sherlock is more inventive than they expected and the explosions aren’t averted. Sherlock has his own seat facing the windows at the back of the lab, ignoring whatever class is behind him. The happiest he gets now is a small quirk of his mouth when Nyx pokes her head up at the lab windows when no one’s looking, or the nights when he can sneak Nyx into his bedroom.

***

University is a welcome relief. He lives alone, so can spend all his free time with Nyx, and attends few lectures, having learnt most of it already by himself. He and Nyx go out walking and he quickly earns his reputation as the tall, cold-looking one with the terrifying dog. He buys a collar for Nyx, for appearance’s sake, but she just laughs at him and asks when they started caring about appearances.

He researches shamans and their spirit animals, trying to find out if there are more partners like him and Nyx in the world, and stumbles across a decades old unsolved murder. Neglecting his studies, he manages to solve it, and informs the correct authorities. Of course, they don’t take the word of a 19-year-old student, but he knows he’s right, and that’s enough. The moment that all the evidence clicks together is a glorious rush; Nyx’s eyes shine with it.

Sherlock continues his studies. When he notices Nyx becoming listless and bored he digs up as much information as he can on a cold case and does his best to solve it. It turns out that his best is really quite good. But soon there aren’t enough accessible cold cases to keep the rush going. He briefly considers a job in the police force and immediately dismisses it. Nearing the end of university, he is fast becoming aware that any normal job will not be able to feature Nyx, and he refuses to repeat the pain of boarding school. But they do need more of that rush.

He’s not sure how or when the cocaine started. Perhaps it was at a house party, invited by a boastful student who had a bet that they could get the tall, cold-looking one with the terrifying dog to come. Or perhaps it was his own idea, as his mind slowly tried to tear itself to pieces and Nyx lay in the corner growling softly at nothing. Those were the bad days.

However it started, it becomes a habit. Nyx is unhappy with it. It makes my head hurt, she says. It makes me sick. It makes everything sing, in a bad way. No, Sherlock tells her. It’s the rush. Can’t you feel it too?

The habit worsens. Sherlock ignores Nyx’s protests, which drift to his ears as if through water. You’ve been kicked out of your college. How are you going to pay for this? What are you doing? You’re destroying your brain. She tries to intimidate the dealers Sherlock goes to, but Sherlock’s desperate, drugged-up eyes and the money he brandishes at them persuades them otherwise. Sherlock sinks further away from Nyx, and Nyx despairs, unable to stop him escaping her, forced to stay and watch him trickle away.

***

Sherlock doesn’t hear Nyx again until he’s shocked back alive by the paramedics, on a filthy alleyway floor. All the paramedics hear are angry barks and growls, but Sherlock hears Nyx’s shouts, cursing him for killing them, however briefly, laying on every insult she can think of, letting Sherlock know just how stupid he’s been. A bewildered police sergeant looks on as the overdose case he stumbled across smiles at the dog (or is it a wolf?) and then tells Lestrade that he shouldn’t marry his fiancée because she’s a lying cheat. Then both he and the dog slip into unconsciousness at the very same moment.

Once again, Sherlock becomes the tall, cold-looking one with the terrifying dog, but this time the reputation is among the members of New Scotland Yard. With Lestrade’s promotion to detective inspector, Sherlock is able to get more influence, most importantly to get Nyx inside the building. Sometimes he wishes she could still change forms, or had settled as something more subtle, but then she chases a criminal along an alley and bites his ankles to bring him down and Sherlock falls more in love with her. His mind still attempts to tear itself to shreds, when Lestrade has no cases, or only pathetically easy cases, but now instead of growling at invisible nothings in the corner, Nyx growls at him not to go out and give in to temptation. Not again.

***

Their lives brighten up considerably when John Watson enters. Sherlock has always been repulsed and disgusted when kids who don’t see her frightening size or teenagers who think they’re brave enough have touched Nyx, but somehow John seems to understand that she’s more than just a pet and doesn’t stroke her. At first Sherlock is grateful but then increasingly, mysteriously he wants him to. I want him to, too, Nyx says, curled up to Sherlock on their bed. I want him to touch me. It would feel so good. But Sherlock tells her no. No, we can’t. He’s never had anyone like John. He doesn’t want to lose him. John wouldn’t understand.

A case gets dangerous. They’ve been living together for a year, or something like that. It feels like less. It feels like a lifetime. Sherlock marvels at it every day. But still he wants to confront this gang of criminals, and ignores John’s protests. Nyx protests too. They know all John can hear are the yips and barks of a regular dog. It’s too dangerous, she tells him. You can’t go, or at least not alone. Take John with you. He can take his gun. Please, Sherlock, don’t do this to us again, don’t hurt us. Sherlock brushes her objections off as well, until John says four quiet words that change Sherlock’s whole world:

She’s right, you know.

Sherlock slowly turns from the map he’s studying to face John. John’s eyes are full of understanding. I’ll go and get my gun, he says. Sherlock stops him, grabs his arm as he turns to go. He can’t get a question out. He can’t ask why, or how, or when. John sees him struggling.

In Afghanistan, he says slowly, there was a local man, who had a hawk. I can’t describe the connection because I’ve never seen anything like it before or after, until you and Nyx. But I don’t know why I can understand her.

Sherlock thinks he understands why. He realised a long time ago that Nyx is his soul. He’s never understood these people talking about their souls on the inside, with their hearts, when his is so obviously on the outside. And now he realises that he and Nyx are in even deeper than he thought they were; he realises that his soul speaks to John.

***

They go out to confront the criminals together, and things are so much better as a fully communicating team. Sherlock knows now why he and John have always been a good team, and he wonders how he could have missed the fact that John understood Nyx but wasn’t letting on. Still, they are outnumbered, even with a wolf dog and a gun, and he comes home victorious but battered and bruised. John helps him up to the flat and Nyx follows behind, limping from an injury that’s not on her body. Sherlock’s cuts and scrapes are cleaned up, ice is placed on his bruises, and John puts him into bed. Nyx ungracefully hops up beside him.

Curiously though, John doesn’t leave. He stays at the side of the bed, shifting from foot to foot, looking anywhere but at Sherlock and Nyx. Nyx picks up on his nervousness, pulling her ears back slightly, a quiet whine escaping from her throat. After tense seconds, John lets out a decisive huff of breath, making both Sherlock and Nyx jump, and then feel incredibly foolish.

It hasn’t been easy, has it? he asks Sherlock, or Nyx, or both of them. He doesn’t expect an answer though. He is moderately intelligent and reasonably observant and he has a good imagination. He doesn’t need an answer. The tension is still thick and Nyx’s ears are still slightly back. Sherlock knows she wants, and he wants too. Do it, John, he urges quietly. John smiles a little smile and reaches out to slide a hand through Nyx’s fur.

It’s everything all at once. Both Nyx and Sherlock instantly relax, and John too. It feels so intimate, it feels so vulnerable. It isn’t repulsion or disgust. It feels so good. Sherlock smiles, and Nyx’s eyes shine like they haven’t for years. They both know: never again will they experience the pain of boarding school or the lows of university. Now it isn’t just Sherlock and Nyx, struggling along together. Now it’s Sherlock and Nyx and John.

**Author's Note:**

> You can hit me up in the comments here or at hannahrrrr.tumblr.com  
> Thanks!


End file.
